Organizational Structure

decision makingThere are many problems associated with the health care system; this is obvious within many organizations, particularly between rival hospitals and departments. The outcome of these communication breakdowns is decreased performance. Therefore, a requirement for change in management with a performance improvement strategy is over due.

"Management is the process of working with people and resources to accomplish organizational goals" (Bateman & Snell, 2004, p. 14). Within my organization are the basic levels of management. From top level managers whose primary focus is to set strategic goals and oversee the progress of these goals, to middle-level managers whose main responsibility is translating their goals and plans into different objectives. Depending upon the function, organizations are typically differentiated. Within the organization, the degree of differentiation also varies reflecting its structure (Charns & Tweksbury, 1993).

In this highly diverse organization, coordination between professional groups, patient care units and service components within the organization is highly important to the performance of health delivery system. For example, in a hospital there are primary clinical departments of medicine, surgery, and neurology, are further differentiated into various subspecialties like cardiology, nephrology within the departments of medicines. This kind of differentiated and specialized organization requires substantial degree of coordination and communication. Various different kinds of intra-organizational mechanisms are used by health care managers to coordinate work activities.

Due to the high level of interdependencies that exist in health care organization, coordination and communication becomes more important for the survival of the organization and continue to face external challenges. For example, a patient having a cardiac problem is directed to the cardiology department, but if he/she also has kidney problem then the...